U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,421 issued Nov. 15, 1989 to George D. Margolin discloses electronic scanners and printers which employ fiber optic bundles. The bundles are non coherent in the sense that there is no predetermined relationship between the ends of the fibers in first face of the bundle and the opposite ends of the fibers in a second face.
The fiber bundle in each instance is organized so that the first face has a linear geometry and the second face has an area geometry. For a printer, an organic or selenium photoconductor such as a photosensitive medium or an electrostatic drum is optically coupled to the linear face and a light beam from a source, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), is directed into the second face. The beam positions in the second face at which light is introduced are determined during an initialization procedure which identifies those positions to correspond with the pixel positions in the linear face to ensure the faithful reproduction of a stored image at the linear face.
The operation as a scanner is somewhat different but uses the same fiber optic bundle configuration and a similar initialization procedure. The scanner is operative to scan a document which is juxtaposed with the linear face of the bundle. Instead of a photosensitive medium at the linear face, a platen is positioned there or a set of rollers for moving a document. A sensor is positioned to detect light transmitted through or reflected from the document. Such a scanner is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,304 of Eugene I. Gordon issued Apr. 17, 1989.
Both printers and scanners are marketed by many companies and the market place is hotly contested as is well known. Therefore, any reduction in complexity or improvement in performance is desirable. In accordance with the principles of the present invention, both benefits are achieved, along with a relatively small configuration and higher reliability.